evening/bedtime routine/management with toddler and twin infants

for all you mommas out there with a toddler and twin babies, how do you manage your evening hours? i sooooo could use some advice on how to do all ten thousand things at the end of our day.

our evenings right now typically looks like this:

it starts with when the girls wake up from their nap, let's say it's 5:00 p.m. so...

5:00 i nurse and burp twins

5:30-5:45 i try to throw something together and call it dinner

5:45ish we try to eat dinner

6:30 i nurse the girls again (because they can't stay awake longer than 1 1/2 hours, so this gives them a quick little rest without all hell breaking loose.)

6:30-7:30 we start baths for all 3 kids. (i prefer having big brother be in the bath tub at the same time i'm bathing babies in the sink, but it doesn't always work out)

8:00 big brother's bed time, and babies' last feeding

if we're lucky, and the babies are out, then i finally get a break at around 9:00 p.m.

i am so wiped out by the end of this 4 hour session, then there's still chores to be done and eating to be done (all that nursing starves me, and i usually scarf down food so quickly at dinner that it's just not quite enough.)

tell me what i'm doing wrong and how i can do things better!

 

:hug: I actually came on to post something similar but reversed - I'm struggling with trying to get through our evening dinner and bath/bedtime routine with my twin toddlers while my newborn needs to nurse. I can't imagine how hard it is in your situation. Good luck - I hope you get some good advice!!!

 

Im not sure how old your twins and toddler are but I have 3 month old twins and a 20 month old too. I also cook most nights and we eat at 6 but yes I usually just have to scarf something down whenever I can. My evenings are chaotic too but if I were you Id cut out all the baths first. That would save you an hour easily. That's a lot of unecessary work in my opinion. Getting the bath out & ready & towels & wash each one & dry each one & lotion & dress, etc etc & then you gotta put away all that bathing stuff - not to mention you are increasing your wash load washing all those towels too -GAH! I bathe my twins twice/week - Sundays and Thursdays so thats only one week night. The rest of the week they get wiped down with a washcloth every morning - mostly smelly necks and faces. Babies dont get that dirty so twice /week is plenty for them as long as you are wiping them down every morning. My toddler gets a bath every other night and that is my husbands job so Im usually nursing the twins while he is doing that. The twins go to bed at 7:30 and my toddler goes to bed at 8 so after 8 pm I am FREE. But that just usually means Im cleaning up the kitchen etc.

 

I was going to suggest cutting baths too. Could you possibly do your toddler while the twins take their "cat nap" and then the opposite night bathe your twins? :hug: It will get better with time! I'm lucky right now that Hannah has a later bedtime than the boys but I'm dreading if she starts pushing it back!!